In this series we’ll take a fresh look at resources and how they are used. We’ll go beyond natural resources like air and water to look at how efficiency in raw materials can boost the bottom line and help the environment. We’ll also examine the circular economy and design for reuse — with an eye toward honoring those resources we do have.

While changes at home can’t solve the many environmental crises we face today, they can sure help. Through this series, we’ll explore how initiatives like curbside compost pick-up, rebates on compost bins, and efficient appliances can help families reduce their impact without breaking the bank.

Despite decades -- centuries even -- of global efforts, slavery can still be found not just on the high seas, but around the world and throughout various supply chains. Through this series on forced labor, sponsored by C&A Foundation, we’ll explore many different types of bonded and forced labor and highlight industries where this practice is alive and well today.

In this series we examine how companies should respond to national controversy like police violence and the BLM movement to best support employees and how can companies work to improve equality by increasing diversity in their ranks directly.

Compost is often considered a panacea for the United States’ tremendous food waste problem. Indeed, composting is a much better option than putting spoiled food in a garbage can destined for a landfill.

No one is celebrating the Deepwater Horizon disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. But once the oil settles, so to speak, one big beneficiary could be the Canadian oil sands industry.

The province of Alberta contains petroleum reserves second only to Saudi Arabia: 173 billion barrels oil in the form of a thick, sticky substance known as bitumen, aka oil or tar sands. This nearby, safe, secure and increasingly cost-competitive source of energy has just one big problem: it is far more polluting to extract than conventional sources.

But now the Gulf oil spill may make the environmental costs associated with bitumen look relatively manageable in comparison.

Don Coxe, a financial analyst, told the Edmonton Journal, “The oilsands were referred to as ‘bad oil’ … but it’s nowhere near the same thing as [the Deepwater disaster]. I hate to say it, but what is really bad news for offshore is good news for the oilsands.”

These sentiments were echoed in an editorial in the Calgary Herald. The paper noted that “to appear triumphalist in the face of the calamity in the Gulf would be insensitive,” but added “there is, however, an opportunity here for Alberta to reinforce the obvious without actually stating it: environmental damage from land-based oil operations remain localized and are more manageable.”

It doesn’t take a petroleum engineer to understand their argument: it is hard to imagine a land-based oil disaster that would be as difficult to control as a gusher 5,000 feet below the surface of the ocean.

On the other hand, each week that passes without a fix to the Gulf oil spill further undermines conventional wisdom that the risks associated with offshore drilling are minimal, or at least manageable.

If the Gulf spill does curtail US offshore development — and the President has already suspended exploration as a result of the spill — then the country will be forced to buy more oil from foreign sources. Where better than friendly, stable Canada?

As if in anticipation of the Gulf spill, late last month the US Environmental Protection Agency determined in a draft statement that a proposed pipeline to bring oil sands crude from Canada to Port Arthur, Texas “would have limited adverse environmental impacts.” The 1,980 mile long pipeline is expected to begin construction this year.

BC (Ben) Upham is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles. He has written for the New York Times, and was a writer and editor for News Communications, Inc., a local paper consortium serving Manhattan. When he's not blogging on green issues -- and especially renewable energy -- he's hiking in the Angeles Mountains or hanging out at El Matador.

And let's not forget that one earthen dam breach send millions of gallons of toxic goo gushing into one of North America's largest watersheds. Sorry to see this industry's “conventional wisdom” being parroted here by TP. Some scenarios to ponderL http://pubs.pembina.org/reports/watersthatbindu…